


family reunion

by joisattempting



Series: look over there it's a wild falsettos college au [1]
Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Eating Disorders, F/F, F/M, M/M, Road Trips, They're only mentioned though, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Unplanned Pregnancy, cordelia's is thompson, curly haired marvin, don't judge me idk what's going on either, english major trina because why the fuck not, idk how to do this pls help, lawyer marvin, marvin and whizzer are piano legends, marvin stress eats but only a little, photographer whizzer, reposted, that's at the end tho ;), they all go to nyu!, this is a hot fucking mess, trans mendel!!!, trina's last name is aronowitz, unless there's a flashback or something but i'll put trigger warnings for those, whizzer is a foodie fight me, whizzvin & the lesbians share an apartment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 17:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21058052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joisattempting/pseuds/joisattempting
Summary: the gang reunites for junior year.





	family reunion

**Author's Note:**

> hello and welcome to a shitty college au
> 
> a few things!!  
\- as a cis person, i'm not entirely sure how to write trans characters, so tips are greatly appreciated :)  
\- some of the characters may be a bit ooc, and i'm sorry! the way i write them can be based off my own personal headcanons, but i do try!  
\- this is my first fic on ao3, so go easy on me hnng  
\- comments are very much appreciated, i'd love to hear what you guys think!  
\- this is a repost because i couldn't make a series from my phone? (can you tell this is my first time on ao3)
> 
> i'm so nervous fjhirfhd

Marvin stirred, yawning as he opened his sleep-heavy blue eyes. The captain’s voice came over the speakers, announcing their descent into New York. His arm feeling limp and weighted, the man ran a hand through his hair, which had grown wild and unkempt throughout his lengthy slumber. That was the thing with Marvin. He could sleep pretty much anywhere. The time on his watch read four o’clock in the morning. Currently, the twenty-year-old was sat in what could easily have been the shittiest seat on the entire plane, en route back to NYU from his childhood home in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Despite the fatigue that filled his body, he actually looked forward to being back at school. Junior year. Two more years until he could be one of those uptight, respected, fucking badass lawyers. 

In all honesty, he’d never wanted to go home, only flying the fleeting few miles to his hometown because, well, there wasn’t anywhere else he could go. For his first two years, he’d lived on campus, sharing a dorm with a handful of friends, namely Whizzer, Charlotte, and Cordelia. Come the holidays, Marvin’s anxiety skyrocketed at the mere thought of asking his blonde lesbian friend if he could accompany her, her girlfriend, and Whizzer upstate to Rochester. Yes, they were friends, and inside he knew that the odds of Cordelia disagreeing would be slim to none, but the last thing Marvin wanted was to inconvenience her. He’d done enough of that in high school. And so, home he went, back to the torment and neglect and lingering, horrible memories. 

As he shoved his way past travellers with tacky straw sunhats and shrieking tourists, Marvin remembered his first time alone in JFK. A lonely, somewhat depressed boy of eighteen, fresh out of his hellish high school. Fear was evident in his eyes and his hands trembled as he handed the gruff man behind the desk his tattered passport. He remembered grabbing someone else’s suitcase on accident, and having to profusely apologise to an incensed, elderly German man, almost resorting to begging on his knees so that security wouldn’t be called on him. He’d lived in the city for four years at that point - his family had shipped off after Marvin finished eighth grade at an uptight boarding school with Mendel, so why was he so nervous? 

He remembered feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders. It never left, but Marvin was somewhat used to it, now that he’d been in college for two years. God knew studying law would be difficult. He knew his coursework and finals would drive him insane, and they had. Little eighteen-year-old Marvin would read his thick, green law book late into the night, a flashlight in one hand, keeping a wary eye on Whizzer in the next bed, so as to not disturb him. Then, there was the time he’d fallen asleep at a lecture. They still don’t talk about that. 

“Marvin!” a voice yelled from a couple metres away. The man turned around to find a young woman standing behind him, dressed in a sweatshirt given to her by the university that didn’t fit her in the slightest, mind you. Her hair was curly, and hickory in colour. In her hand, she held a sealed paper cup of Starbucks coffee. Black, undoubtedly; this was Charlotte DuBois. “Get your dumb ass over here so we can go home and fucking sleep,” 

Marvin rolled his eyes. “I’ve missed you ever so dearly, Charlotte,” he said in the worst British accent in the multiverse. And that said something, because Cordelia’s sounded like Oliver Twist on crack. 

Suddenly, he felt a weight on his back. Speaking of Cordelia Thompson, the girl had forced him to give her nonconsensual piggybacks ever since freshman year, so he wasn’t fazed when she decided to throw her entire body onto him at four in the morning. How she always had so much energy, Marvin still didn’t know. “Fucking hell, I was trying to scare you,”

“You’ve been doing this since college started, Dee, you’re gonna have to try harder than that,” 

And then, there was Whizzer. Marvin nearly dropped Cordelia on the dirty linoleum floor of the airport. Brown hair cascaded over his forehead, the tips of which reaching just above his eye. He wore a sleek black hoodie and a pair of sweats, and was currently devouring a donut. For a guy who had a taut stomach and muscled arms, he sure was keen on his food. He’d never say so, but Marvin preferred the sleepy, sweet Whizzer who wore hoodies and fell asleep on him, to his snarky counterpart, who could often be found in a ridiculously tight button-down shirt. They’d awkwardly danced around each other for the first two years, and sure; they screwed a few times, but they were just best friends, on the whole. Marvin had doubted his sexuality for years, fighting a constant battle with his internal homophobia. Yet, after a particularly numbing sex with Trina after last year’s finals, he was ready to come out. 

The younger man looked up and smirked, finishing up the last of his donut. “Jesus Christ, your hair looks like you just failed a chemistry lab,” 

Absently trying to flatten the curly mess atop his head that was a consequence of sleeping on the plane, Marvin flushed scarlet. “Where are ‘Del and Trina?”

“Trina’s in the bathroom,” Cordelia said, sliding off Marvin's back and lacing her fingers through Charlotte’s. “And I’m pretty sure Mendel just went with her and waited outside because that’s very discreet,” 

“Speak of the devil,” Whizzer mumbled tiredly, pointing in the direction of two people. 

And sure enough, a man and a woman that could only be recognised as Mendel Weisenbachfeld and Trina Aronowitz respectively, trudged towards them. They seemed to be making awkward conversation. Mendel’s ebony curls were as wild as ever, and his oversized green cardigan was wrapped around the meek girl beside him, because she had left her coat back at her dorm. She had chosen to remain living on campus. Mendel, too. In fact, their rooms were directly across the hall from each other. Marvin remembered silently gagging when Trina told him over the phone. 

“Sorry,” she said, pulling the cardigan tighter around her body. “We got held up, because Mendel couldn’t remember the name of the drink, so he literally described it to the barista. It was like charades, but more disturbing,”

“The point is, I have it now,” the man grinned, holding up a transparent Starbucks cup. 

Whizzer cocked an eyebrow. “You wanted a London Fog?”

Trina shook her head. “He did an impression of the queen for the ‘London’ part. Quote unquote, he said 'Pip pip, tea and crumpets! Tally ho, governor! God save the queen!',” 

Mendel stared at Whizzer. “Your brain just has to fart sometimes, and you really can’t figure anything out. Trust me, I’m getting a medical degree,”

“I don’t trust you, with or without a degree,”

Charlotte sighed. “Whatever, can we just go home? I can drop you guys off at the campus,”

Murmured agreements rippled around the group, and they began the sluggish walk back to Charlotte’s car. Mendel spoke about his trip down to New Jersey to visit his mother, whom he was still on good terms with after coming out as trans, much to his relief and delight. Whizzer and Cordelia had relived their childhood up in Rochester. Out of their group of friends, those two had known each other the longest, having met in preschool under a tree in the playground. Marvin stayed quiet. He wasn’t a very open person, and besides, he’d already told them everything back in high school. Just let it out right there, in his hospital bed. His disorder had made him vulnerable in more ways than one. 

But all fatigue seemed to slip away when Charlotte cranked up the car’s stereo and started playing showtunes. Everyone in the car was singing, even Marvin and Charlotte, who would normally be wholeheartedly against these practices. The atmosphere was light and happy and carefree, and Marvin felt the happiest he had all summer. 

“It looks like we’ve been robbed,” Whizzer said as he unlocked the door to their new apartment. ‘Their’ was a collective term for himself, Marvin, Charlotte, and Cordelia. Too many shenanigans had occurred when they shared a cramped dorm on campus, that it didn’t feel right to part after two years. The only difference was that this year, they could actually sit down without their elbows awkwardly touching, and there was just more space in general to make mistakes, considering the natural crackhead-like qualities each of them possessed. 

“Wait till you see your room,” Cordelia smirked in Marvin’s direction, shrugging off her jacket and shutting the door behind her. “You won’t be able to see the fucking bed around all Whizzer’s boxes,”

“See, this is where you’re wrong, Cordelia Rose Thompson,” Whizzer said matter-of-factly, sticking his tongue out at her. “Most of those boxes are just furniture, so our room doesn’t look like Shrek’s swamp,”

Marvin opened his mouth to make a witty comment, but was quickly cut off by the taller man again. “And don’t even think about saying anything, because I got you an IKEA bed and put it together for you,”

The man tilted his head, brows knit together and a confused look on his face. “Thank you?”

“You’re welcome,” Whizzer said firmly. “Now, let’s go sleep before I die of sleep deprivation,”

The blonde girl hugged Marvin, smiling. “Goodnight, Marvin. Welcome back,”

Charlotte grinned, too. “Yeah. I have a feeling this year’s gonna be a good one, you guys,”

“You said that last year,” Whizzer blew a strand of wavy hair from his eye. 

“Was I wrong?”

“Touché,”

After they bade each other goodnight, the pairs wandered off to their respective rooms. Marvin trailed behind Whizzer, taking in their apartment. It wasn’t the largest, yet not the smallest either, with an open plan kitchen and living room, and two bedrooms on either side. The walls were painted white, and there were art pieces, painstakingly wrapped in plastic, piled up ontop of each other. Marvin wagered they were for the wall. There was a kitchen for Cordelia to burn things, ahem, cook things, and a white island with four blue barstools. It felt like home already. 

Everything was all so new, Marvin mused as he dozed off in the surprisingly stable IKEA bed that his roommate had pieced together for him, yet somehow it was familiar, too. And Marvin liked that. A lot, actually.


End file.
